Tell all the Truth but tell it slant
by crinaeae
Summary: Sequel to It doesn't get easier to tell the truth. AU After her testimony at the trial that brought Ron and Draco together, Hermione is trapped in visions of the past. Determined to rid herself of past ghosts, she starts treatment in St Mungo's mad house.
1. It Ends Like This

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant_  
Sequel to It doesn't get easier to tell the truth._

**Author:** Crinaeae Rai (sweetinsanity90)**  
Beta'ed By****:** Rivi (little_miss_tin)**  
Pairings:** Luna/Stella, Hermione/Luna, Hermione/Severus, Hermione/Draco (friendship), Ron/Draco**  
Rating:** Hard R/NC-17**  
Warnings:** Swearing, Weapon Use, Minor Alcohol/Drug Use/Abuse, Sexual Tension, Sex, Angst, Mentions of War Crimes/Rape/etc, Mental Illness (including eating disorders)**  
Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**  
Summary:** Hermione deals with the fall out from the trial that brought Draco and Ron together. Only, why do dead people keep showing up in her group therapy sessions?**  
Timeline:** Picks up right where _It doesn't get easier to tell the truth_ leaves off, about two weeks after Hermione's testimony. Eight years after The War.**  
A/N1:** I'm not sure how Hermione slipped her way into Ron and Draco's story, but once she was there, I couldn't not tell her story from how she changed from bookworm!Hermione to gun slinging!Hermione.**  
A/N2:** I tried to make the flash backs as clear as possible, but if it's not, then anytime you see a lot of italicized text – it's probably a flash back.**  
A/N3:** OMG, it's a multichapter fic! I have no idea how that happened, but it did. Right now, it'll be about 38-40 chapters.**  
Word Count:** 580/?

_Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —  
Success in Circuit lies  
Too bright for our infirm Delight  
The Truth's superb surprise  
As Lightning to the Children eased  
With explanation kind  
The Truth must dazzle gradually  
Or every man be blind —_

_- Emily Dickinson_

It Ends Like This

"Did you ever think it would end up like this?" Hermione asked, sitting on the counter of Stella's shop, legs swinging slightly as she sipped her first cup of coffee in a month. It tasted dark and bitter, just as she remembered, but somehow not as delicious. She couldn't remember why she craved it so much, just that she had. The dark liquid rippled in a bright coloured mug, nearly splashing over when she kicked too hard. One disproving glance from the other woman, and she stilled her feet.

It took more effort than a month ago.

"I didn't," she answered, wiping down all the shining horizontal surfaces with a rag and water liberally spiked with lemon and rosemary oil, "I always thought the magic the coven had would be enough for me."

"Does it feel weird? To have a wand again?" the words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them.

Hermione hadn't remastered the art of biting down on words she longed to say.

"It feels right," Stella straightened and swished her wand, (twelve inches, elm, pleasantly bendy, mermaid hair core) smiling as the cloth and spritz bottle danced around the shop cleaning tables, "does it feel weird to you? Being back in the real world?"

Hermione scowled, "It's only been a month, I don't think I've gone native just yet!"

"You did bring this upon yourself by asking me first," Stella tossed her hair, coiled in a thick braid today, over her shoulder as she shot a glance at the clock, "Luna should be coming over soon."

"Do you want me to leave?" the words are desperate, and she wishes she could take them back. Putting her mug next to the register, Hermione stood on her own two shaky feet, only to be pushed gently back on her perch. She hadn't even noticed Stella move from across the shop.

She would've noticed a month ago.

She would've had a gun in her hand a month ago, aimed between Stella's breasts.

She could have shot Stella, leaving her crumpled body bleeding on the ground without another thought.

For the first time, gratitude floods Hermione's body, taking her breath away.

"-it doesn't bother you, you know we both love you," Stella was saying when her thoughts returned to the present.

What was she talking about? Oh, right - Luna popping over to the shop.

"No, it doesn't bother me, Stella," Hermione told her, and the words didn't feel like a lie anymore. Impulsively, she wrapped her arms loosely around the other woman. Leaving her room to break free if she wanted. Stella didn't, only pulling her into to a tighter hug. Hermione thought she might forgive her after all. If there was anything left to forgive.

Luna entered the small shop a minute later, her arms joining them in a huge hug. When Hermione pulled away, she watched as Luna kissed Stella.

It didn't feel like a knife was plunging into her heart anymore.

Like it would have a month ago.


	2. Day One

**A/N4:** Happy New Years!

**A/N5:** Since my full header is huge, I'm not going to post it every chapter. See the first chapter for all the disclaimers and all that good stuffs. Chapter specific warnings, word counts, and author's notes will be the only things in the header from here on out. Enjoy!

**Word Count:** 551/?

Day One

"So, what are you in for?" a witch with too bright eyes and stringy hair asked, perching on the arm rest of the threadbare couch Hermione was curled up on in the 'common area'.

"You make it sound like this is a prison," Hermione scoffed. She had been in the long term ward for all of less than an hour, and it had felt like forever. Maybe the weird, semi lucid girl was right - this was a prison.

"Did you skin a frog with your bare hands?" the girl half asked, half sang.

"No," she answered slowly, shaking her head. So much for the lucid, semi or otherwise.

"I did," she whispered, inching closer to Hermione's side of the couch, "and then I eats it."

"Don't let her bother you," another fellow prisoner, this one with black hair and a scraggly beard that reminded Hermione so much of Sirius she wanted to cry, "Frog-Girl likes to mess with the new folks on the floor."

Running away was looking better by the second.

"You really call her that?" Hermione asked, indignant on behalf of the girl who was currently trying to repaint the ward with finger paints charmed against such an action. Great Gryffindor, defending the small and weak, even when they couldn't save themselves.

_Especially when they can't save themselves,_ an inner voice that sounded more like Snape or Draco whispered in her head. Resolutely, Hermione didn't answer back. She had enough problems without adding auditory hallucinations to the mix.

The man snorted, "Practically all the healers call her that. Chit wont answer to much else."

"So, what do the call you?" she asked, bracing herself for some ridiculous response. 'Man with Too Much Beard', or something. Out of the corner of her eye, one of the ward sisters had finally put down her Witchly's Weekly to see Frog-Girl's attempts at artistic stylings. She was now chasing the girl, whose was laughing manically, wand in hand.

"I'm the Boy-Who-Lived," he told her blandly with a hint of a yawn.

It took three sisters and not a few well placed calming and stunning charms before they could pry her off him.

_Snape would be so bloody proud_, she thought as a powerful stunner broke through her weakening shield, _Eight years later and I can still hold off four stunners at a time without a wand._

The healers don't question her much about attacking Peirce (the very fake "boy who lived"). A fact that Hermione was very glad for, although it seemed to wildly go against their nature of sticking their fat noses into every other facet of her life before this. The healer in charge of leading group (or Healer Muttonhead, as Hermione calls her in her head. Partly due to the mass of frizzy, wool like hair, and mostly due to the fact she's a moron.) tries to get her to talk about her work. The healer assigned to her individual sessions (or Healer Dingbat) attempts to talk to her about the trial. She doesn't answer any of them, instead floating through her day in a sedative induced fog.

Even if they asked, she never would've told them "a boy with that title hurt me once". She can't even admit the words to herself.

She won't. Ever.


	3. Day Two

**Warnings:** Underage drinking

**A/N6: **Yes, the chapters will get steadily longer as the story progresses, just hang in there!

**A/N7: **In real life, I work on Saturdays. I will tempt to post after work, but it's more likely I will post on Sundays from here out.

**A/N8: **Reviews are truly loved!

**Word Count:** 778/?

Day Two

When she first saw Severus Snape (sitting next to Frog-Girl across the room from her in the daily group therapy session), Hermione was completely paralyzed. She knew intellectually that Healer Muttonhead was calling her name, but all she could do was sit in her seat, whispering "But you're dead" over and over to herself. She wanted to scream it at the thing wearing his face, to make it go away (because it couldn't be him, he was dead), but the words can only come out in a whisper. Barely, at that.

Then, Frog-Girl starting skipping around the room, and Healer Muttonhead had much more to deal with then her borderline catatonic state.

He was still there, however, even when the sisters came to shove more sedatives and other assorted potions down her throat. They didn't last as long as the first round, and she was quite lucid by the time individual therapy came around after lunch.

The second time, he's in her individual therapy, sitting behind the healer assigned to her case. And he's drinking absinthe.

_The shimmering liquid in the cut crystal glass was a bright green, a colour that had meant nothing but death and pain and fear to the woman staring into its depths for too many years. Slowly, she dripped water from the decanter into the glass through a lump of glimmering white sugar resting atop a thin silver spoon, turning the absinthe in the glass the milky green of malachite and seemed to pulsate with light. Her fingers trembled as she lifted the glass to her lips, the taste bitter and comforting all at once. The alcohol no longer burned as it flowed down her throat, as it once used to, and she sparred a passing thought to mourn the last dregs of her childhood innocence slipping away with each sip of the anise infused liqueur._

"_The only time I ever see you have a drink is after you come back from dealing with our fearless leader," Severus remarked, a dry smirk twisting his words as he glided across the room to the leather chair by the dying embers of the fire were Hermione was curled up. He moved with an effortless grace held by few, and that she envied as she watched him settle into a chair across from her._

"_I know that I shouldn't, but," she shrugged, the motion an explanation in it of itself._

"_Many have said that absinthe drives one to madness," Severus steepled his fingers, "perhaps the Headmaster should offer absinthe sherbets instead of lemon?"_

"_Maybe a little madness is what is needed," she retorted, "Anyway, you're the one who introduced me to the drink."_

"_A mistake I often regret," he sighed and fixed a glass of the drink for himself, "I have been informed of your plan."_

"_We need more intelligence if we're going to have any chance, and I'm in a prime position to gather it."_

"_You don't have to do this, Hermione,"_

"_You do worry for me, how sweet," she smiled at him, "Do you have so little faith in your own teaching abilities, Professor?"_

"_No one can prepare you for the Dark Lord's court."_

"_So you often say. You could show me."_

"_Hermione, you are not thinking clearly-"_

"_Why does everyone tell me this!" she fairly yelled, "I'm not some silly girl!"_

"_Then why do you insist on asking like one?"_

"_Because there is no other way to save everyone!" she was screaming at the man now, pulling on her own frizzy mess of hair in frustration as tears rolled down her face._

Healer Dingbat patiently waited out the flashback, scribbling on his Muggle pad of paper with an equally Muggle ball point pen. He didn't ask her about it, but insisted that she hold on to a ball filled with wisps of blue coloured smoke, lazily moving around in concentric circles. It looked like Neville's ever misplaced Rememberall.

(She would NOT think about Harry. Not now, not ever.)

"The smoke will start to change from blue to red if you begin to slip into another flashback," he said, tapping his wand agaist the glass. Obediently, the smoke changed from indigo, to purple, then finally to red, like watching a sunrise in fast forward. "When that happens, I want you to focus on the present."

"You think I'm never going to stop having them, that's why your giving me the globe version of a seizure dog?" she stated incredulously.

"Hermione, we have to take your healing one step at a time, be it forwards or back." Healer Dingbat smiled at her, and Hermione had to resist the urge to roll her eyes.


	4. Day Three

**A/N9:** Craziness of Real Life and lack of motivation have driven my publishing schedule into the ground, so tonight I'm publishing Days Three and Four. Day Five needs some polish, so it'll be around next week sometime. Unless I get snowed in tomorrow, in which case it might pop up sooner.

**Word Count:** 511/?

Day Three

Severus didn't show his greasy face the next day. Harry did. And it was much worse.

He was outside the windows on his Firebolt, shiny and new as the day he received it from his illustrious godfather. He smirked at her, and waved his hand, curled around a golden Snitch.

Fear flooded her system, overriding every potion and spell.

"What the hell do you want from me, Harry James Potter?" the words exploded from her throat as her hands beat on the unbreakable glass window, leaving red prints behind, "Come back! I'll fucking kill you my bloody self!"

Hermione screamed until her throat had to be healed with magic, and fingernails torn from their beds from scratching the unbreakable glass. Those would have to grow back naturally, the healer tells her as he wraps her hands in heavy white gauze. Hermione is sure that it's simply a new way the sisters can assert control over every facet of life in this microcosm. Everyone had to get their jollies some way or the other.

Telling your shrink "I see dead people" is the entirely wrong thing to say, Hermione realized as she laid on her bed, dots swirling like stars in front of her eyes. Even if it's entirely true. And even if she didn't mean to say it in the first place, the words popping out as he offered her a piece of candy. Trust a shrink to use a Dumbledore-type manipulation method. Spontaneous answers through sweets. Maybe they should start using that technique at the Ministry.

_It wouldn't have mattered if you said nothing, they would know anyway,_ a traitorous voice whispered in her head. The voice sounded just like Harry used to when he would drag her into a nearby closet for a quick shag.

_It's a sad commentary on your love life if you thought that was romantic, Granger,_ A new voice scoffed, this one sounding just like Severus when he would offer dry commentary on the state of the war.

Exasperated, she groaned aloud, "Isn't it bad enough that I have Draco, Luna, and Ron all harping on my lack of love life - now you have to chime in, too?"

The new potion Healer Dingbat has pushed into her system via the sisters seem to be working, though. Well, somewhat. She hasn't seen Harry in over three hours. Severus she did see. Well, maybe she did. He was lurking around the hallway leading to the common room, but when she turned back to look, he had vanished.

And their voices never left her alone.

"Time for group therapy!" the ward chimed, rudely breaking her out of her doze.

"Go to hell," Hermione muttered instead, pulling her pillow over her head. For six whole minutes, she is left totally alone. No one prying into her psyche. No one pulling her into an insane conversation about frogs. No one wanting anything from her. Complete bliss.

It doesn't last, but Hermione has long gotten over the habit of expecting anything to last anymore.


	5. Day Four

**Word Count:** 817/?

Day Four

Frog-Girl is standing outside her door, if her room had a door, that is, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Hurry up, Hermy!" she calls loudly enough that her voice bounces around the sparse room a few times.

Her head hurts like the time Ron got her thoroughly smashed on Muggle liquor the Halloween before Harry died. Her body feels heady, and every movement makes her want to be violently sick. But she knows she hasn't been drinking, so it must be the potion. If so, Healer Dingbat should be given way more credit for possibly being more evil then Voldy-pants ever was.

"What are you so excited for?" Hermione croaked out, pulling on the closest pair of trousers and a wool jumper.

"It's art day!" Frog-Girl chirped, hopping on one foot. Every few jumps she would change foot.

"We have art every day," Hermione told her as she pulled her tangled hair into a knot at the back of her neck. Hair brushes and combs were two of the many things a patient wasn't allowed to have in the ward. As such, her curly hair had slowly worked it's way into a bird's nest that would not become untangled without enough conditioner to cover a small continent.

Frog-Girl continued to hop with her excitement, this time with both feet, "But today the art lady is here!"

The art lady, who Healer Muttonhead introduced simply as 'Madam Linda', turned out to be a volunteer art teacher from one of the wizarding day schools in the area. She was very colouful in her long, Gypsy skirt, and patchwork robes - both covered in bits of paint. Even her bright brass coloured wasn't sparred from the errant flecks of colour. A huge Marry Popin-esque carpet bag that held a large assortment of pastel sticks, water colour paints, and charcoal was slung over one shoulder. Under her arm, she carried a stack of thick wire bound sketch pads.

Frog-Girl sat next to her, still hopping in her chair. Hermione idly wondered when she was going to fall out of her chair. The art lady handed her a sketch pad from the stack, it had "Carrie" written on the front in black, with a small frog drawn under it. Frog-Girl/Carrie flipped open to a seemingly random page, where the bare outlines of a frog were already drawn. Grabbing, a felt tip pen, she started to fill in the internal organs with amazing accuracy.

"Very vivid, Carrie," was all she said, before handing out the rest of her pads before circling back around the room.

"'Ello, you must be new," she greeted Hermione with a voice more used to talking to children then adults, but she handed her a brand new sketch diary, "here you go, lass."

"Can I keep it?" Hermione asked, her hands running over the bleached paper.

"You have to give it back at the end of the session, with the wire and all, but yes, you can keep it," the woman pulled out a thick marker and wrote her name in the same loopy script, and doodled a small sheep under it, "there, all yours."

Hermione spent the rest of the hour drawing a flock of sheep grazing on a lush green field, the Hogwarts castle in the distant background. (And if she did see Severus watching her from the window in the door, she completely ignores him. Because he's dead. And dead people can't stalk you.) Or tries to, at the very least. But when she hands the book over to Madam Linda at the end of the hour, all she can see is Harry's face, emerald green eyes staring back hard and unyielding, drawn over and over again.

"That's not what I meant to draw," she tells the woman, hoping her voice sounds reasonable. Sane.

Madam Linda doesn't seem to realize she's crazy, however, "It's alright, love, sometimes the charcoal gets away from us all."

"Does that ever happen to you?"

"All the time!" she tells her with a bright smile, "Art is alive in ways that none of us will ever be able to understand! Some of the best works start out as something else entirely."

Hermione blinked blankly, "I thought you were going to tell me it was my psyche asserting itself via a creative outlet."

"Oh no, love," Linda patted her on her head like a pet, "I'm only an art teacher."

It's a bit like saying that Professor Dumbledore was only a teacher, Hermione mused. Then again, he had always been fond of understatement in his own way as well.


	6. Day Five

**Word Count:** 1,185/?

Day Five

"I sees Sneverus" Hermione blurts out by way of greeting when Draco sits down across the table from her.

"I keep seeing Snape" is what she meant to say, of course, but the new anti-psychotic potion slurs her speech more than ten Firewhiskeys. It also messes with her priorities and ability to not say everything on the tip of her tongue. However, she is no longer catatonic when drugged, so small victories. Very small. Microscopic, really.

One day they'll get it right, or so they keep reassuring her.

Hopefully, she'll be sane first.

"What are you on?" Draco asked, eyes wide, worry leaking out of every pore. She can practically see it floating around his head in a urine yellow haze. Blinking hard, the haze is gone. Yet another fun side effect to add to the ever growing list - ability to 'see' emotional auras.

Shaking her head makes her brain slosh around unpleasantly, so she settles on shrugging one shoulder, "don't know. It stops the dead from visiting though."

"But you keep seeing Snape," the blonde says after a blink. Sighing, Draco moves to the bench she is sitting on, holding her close. Through the heavy jumper, he can feel the sharp jab of her shoulders, more prominent then they were before this whole mess with Ron started. "Honey, Severus is dead, too."

"How do we know he's dead?" she asked in a horse whisper, "We never saw his body!"

"Harry told us what happened that night, you remember," he told her, "do you really think he would lie about something like that?"

"I don't know if he would or not," she said slowly, forcing the words out, "A couple weeks ago, I would've said he wasn't capable of a lot of things that he did."

"I know, Hermione, I know," Draco sighs, his voice weary.

"I think he lied about more then we know, but that's not the point. The point is I'm still seeing Snape, so he must be alive, not a hallucination, because if he was a hallucination, I wouldn't be seeing him anymore." she insisted, her hair falling in clumps over her eyes. Pushing the curls away, she glared at him.

Crossing his arms, Draco glared right back, "Don't glare at me, Hermione, I'm not the one who put you here in the first place!"

"But you do think it's possible he's still alive, don't you?"

"I don't know what to believe, anymore!" Draco shouted, frustration etched in every line of his body, "This whole mess has turned everything on it's head!"

"If you can't be quiet, Mister Malfoy, you'll have to leave," the sister supervising the visitor's room scolded Draco sternly, "excitement is not good for the healing process."

"I'm sorry, Sister," he oozed the trademark Malfoy charm, "It won't happen again, I promise."

"See that you do, sir," she bristled, unimpressed, before leaving the two in relative privacy.

"I think Ron and I broke up," Draco told Hermione after the silence stretched between them awkwardly. For good measure, he produced two bars of Honeydukes famous chocolate - chilies and cherries in dark chocolate for him, and toffee almond crunch in milk chocolate for her.

Hermione snorted and sat up, crossing her legs on the bench, as she pealed the foil apart carefully. At least Draco had taken the hint and steered the conversation away from the dangerous waters, "That's hardly a surprise, Dray."

"I thought you said that we were good for each other!" he asked, mock offended, "and if you don't knock it off with that silly uni nickname, I'll start calling you 'Hermy', like that girl who's attached herself to your hip."

"I did, but Ron's been my friend longer then you have," Hermione commented, overlooking the halfhearted threat, "he's always been terrified of commitment. I think Lavender was his longest relationship."

"It's not like it's a piece of cake for me either," he retorted, "I just have enough money and not enough family for anyone to make an issue out of it!"

"Honestly, Draco, stop being so dense," she scolded him, inhaling the heavenly scent of the candy, "the last time he told anyone in the magical community he liked boys more than he ought to, they bound his magic in an archaic ritual!"

The conversation paused as they both put chunks of chocolate in their mouths, letting it melt over the tongue.

"It's hardly my fault that his father had to be weirdly old-school on that count. Mostly people don't care now-a-days, as long as you marry and produce an heir."

Hermione rolled her eyes animatedly, breaking off another bite, "And I'm sure that's why you're an only child."

"My father and mother may have never shared a bed after I was conceived," he said, while reaching over to pilfer the piece of chocolate she had broken off, "but that had more to do with my mother's vanity then my father's preference for woman half his age."

"And there goes the Gryffindor pool of Lucius and Severus shacking up," she sighed dramatically, taking a bite of his in turn, "Why must you always get the most disgusting flavour they make?"

"Really? There was a pool?" Draco batted his eyelashes innocently, "and the white chocolate banana is by far the most disgusting flavour, not the classic goodness that is chillies and cherries in dark chocolate."

Hermione smacked his arm playfully, "Don't you know that's what we Gryffs get up to between all the duels and rule breaking?"

"Are you going to get in trouble for spilling House secrets?" Draco asked, disbelievingly, "Anyway, Ron."

"If you want to be in a relationship with him, you're going to have to deal with his freak outs."

"I'd rather deal with yours."

"Really?" she blinked, surprised.

"Your freak outs are easier. I can hug you, feed you contraband chocolate, give you dusty tombs from the manor that no one but you will find interesting. With Ron, I have no idea how to help him. I spent most of my time knowing him provoking him."

"Just get to know him, Draco," Hermione sighed with the weariness of a girl who has spent too much time explaining matters of the heart to dense boys, "Pretend that you never knew him, and just get to know him."

"On the up side, he does seem keen on continuing to 'shag like bunnies'," he said with false cheer.

"Well, that's all you need, then," she tried for seriousness, but then gave into the giggles threatening.

Laughter was good for the soul, after all. Chocolate just happened to be even better.


End file.
